“For fans who appreciate emotionally wrenching reads such as those by Sarah Jio or Kristin Hannah.” -Library Journal “Fans of Jodi Picoult and Kristin Hannah now have a new go-to author.” –Sally Hepworth, bestselling author of The Secrets of Midwives From the bestselling author of The Things We Cannot Say, Before I Let You Go, and the upcoming The Warsaw Orphan, comes a poignant post-WWII … Orphan, comes a poignant post-WWII novel that explores the expectations society places on women set within an engrossing family mystery that may unravel everything once believed to be true.
With her father recently moved to a care facility, Beth Walsh volunteers to clear out the family home and is surprised to discover the door to her childhood playroom padlocked. She’s even more shocked at what’s behind it–a hoarder’s mess of her father’s paintings, mounds of discarded papers and miscellaneous junk in the otherwise fastidiously tidy house.
As she picks through the clutter, she finds a loose journal entry in what appears to be her late mother’s handwriting. Beth and her siblings grew up believing their mother died in a car accident when they were little more than toddlers, but this note suggests something much darker.
Beth soon pieces together a disturbing portrait of a woman suffering from postpartum depression and a husband who bears little resemblance to the loving father Beth and her siblings know. With a newborn of her own and struggling with motherhood, Beth finds there may be more tying her and her mother together than she ever suspected.
Don’t miss Kelly Rimmer’s upcoming and unforgettable novel, The Warsaw Orphan.
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This is a story about family, and secrets, and the unbreakable tie between mothers and daughters. Unputdownable!
This book is about a family struggling to deal with the loss of a loved one and finding out that things aren’t what they seem.
It’s sad to think of the so few options available to women back then compared to today’s world. The mind set of men that women can’t have a career and also a family at the same time is appalling.
I really enjoyed the book and had a hard time putting it down. I liked the characters and definitely recommend!
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the early copy
This book totally swept me away. I was so invested in each one of the characters, their individual stories and the story of the family overall that I didn’t want it to end! Kelly Rimmer’s writing is so natural, her dialogue and ability to convey complex emotions are so spot on, it’s very easy to tumble into the story she’s telling. I’ve given no spoilers in this review. All that I have written is my take on the publication description. This is too great a read to spoil for anyone!! One note of caution: if post-partum depression is a trigger for you, do not read this book.
This particular story is of the Walsh family; Patrick, Grace, and their children Tim, twins Ruth & Jeremy, and Beth. It also includes Grace’s parents and sister Maryanne.
At the book’s beginning, we are introduced to Grace through a diary entry written on 9/14/1957. She is in crisis, her husband not yet home from work, it’s hours after he said he would be home, and truth be told, she has no idea where he is. She only knows she can’t count on him. But she needs him home, feeling her children’s safety depends on it. She feels ready to break, so she’s hiding from her four children under 4 years of age – Timmy, twins Ruth & Jeremy and baby Beth. She knows she loves them, she really does. It’s just the first year after giving birth that is so hard, so damn hard, with no sleep and demand after demand. “Tonight I’m teetering on the edge of something horrific. Tonight the sounds of my baby’s cry might just be the thing that breaks me altogether.”
Beth, Grace’s youngest child, is the other POV used in the story. Beth writes from the year 1996. She is on maternity leave from her job as a child psychologist at a community center. She and Hunter tried for six years before having Noah. Now she wonders if they made a mistake. But she can’t tell anyone that! She and her brother, Tim are trying to get their dad, Patrick, packed so they can move him to the nursing home for hospice care. Has his dementia really come to this? She can’t bear it! Their dad, their loving dad…..
Once he’s safely in the hospice home, there’s his house to clean out. Beth offers to do it – after all, she’s on leave, and everyone else is working; Hunter is a junior partner at a law firm, oldest brother Tim is an orthopedic surgeon, Ruth is running the Walsh family construction company and has three children of her own, and Jeremy, an earth science professor lives an hour away. She starts with the “easy” rooms/things and she is pleased with her progress.
When Beth unexpectedly finds the door to their old playroom (the attic) locked, she enlists Ruth’s help in sending over two workmen to open the door. Beth and Ruth are amazed by the towering mess the attic has become! There is so much to be sorted through, how could their fastidious, tidy father ever let it get to this point? Ruth is daunted by the mess, so Beth says she’ll just keep chipping away at it, it’ll just take longer than expected to clean Dad’s house. But Beth is not herself, she’s struggling, tired, and everything seems so overwhelming. Soon her family notices and tries to help her, but she just hears it as noise, and criticism. Unable to tell them what she’s going through and feeling they wouldn’t understand, she begins to spiral.
Then she finds a loose page from her mother’s diary. When she reads it, she recognizes herself in the words. Did her mom go through this too? When more pages are found and shared with her family, they realize that what their beloved father told them about their mom’s death, that she died in a car accident, isn’t true. But then, what is the truth? Why would he lie? What other secrets are waiting to be uncovered?
The book alternates between Grace’s and Beth’s POVs. It is exceptionally well-done and it is extremely satisfying to watch the stories in both time periods develop. The author deals with post-partum depression in two different eras in a sensitive and thorough manner.
If you can’t tell, I absolutely loved this book and highly recommend it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
My thanks to NetGalley and Graydon House for allowing me to read a copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. All opinions expressed are my own.
Truths I Never Told You is an amazing book with dual time lines. It tells the story of Grace, a mother of 4, married to Patrick in 1957. After all 3 of her pregnancies, Grace suffered with postpartum depression. We find out about Grace’s life through journal entries her daughter Beth finds when cleaning out her father’s house. Beth’s story is told in 1996. Patrick has dementia and is being moved into a care facility. Beth and her siblings have always been told their mother had died in a car accident but going through Patrick’s house they find journal entries from their mom. As Beth and her siblings put together the mystery of what really happened to their mom, the reader is entangled in both women’s lives. I loved the characters in this book. I felt their ups and downs and everything in between.I loved how Beth connected with the mom she can not remember through the journal entries. I received an advanced readers copy and all opinions are my own.
Truths I Never Told you is many things: a heart wrenching story, a mystery , family relationships, things we say and things we never say to our family or others.
The story is told in two time lines with multiple viewpoints .The confusion starts when Beth finds a note her mom wrote years ago. There Dad is now in declining health and cant answer their questions of how or when their Mom died.
There is so much to this book . I wont do it justice by describing it you just have to pick up this book and read it.
Very thought provoking.
Kelly Rimmer draws you in from the first page and keeps you hooked.
Thanks to NetGalley and Harelquin – Graydon House Books (US and Canada)
I don’t know where to start, this is another moving, poignant story of family and secrets from MS Rimmer, this one had me turning the pages, it was so hard to put down and when I did I could not stop thinking about the characters in this story, I stayed up late last night finishing this one and it will be a long time before I let go of this one.
It is 1959 and we meet Grace a young married woman with four young children, times are hard and Grace is struggling with family and life. She loves her husband Patrick but back in the fifties children and home where the woman’s responsibility, Grace starts writing notes about how she feels and hides them away, the last thing Grace wants is another baby and when this happens she asks her sister Maryanne to help.
It is now 1996 and Beth is the youngest of Grace and Patrick’s children she is mother to a five month old son, Patrick is not well and the four children Tim, Ruth Jeremy and Beth decide that it is time for him to go into care and Beth start cleaning the house in the attic she comes across a series of notes from her mother Grace which turns their lives upside down they had always been told their mother died in a car accident and the need to uncover the truth and not upset their father is a must.
MS Rimmer is such a fabulous story teller she takes on issues that are relevant in today’s society with caring and compassion, I loved getting to know the three main storytellers in this book, Grace, Beth and Maryanne and hearing their views on mental illness, life in the fifties and the nineties and how illnesses are treated so differently times have changed so much, Tim Ruth and Jeremy and their spouses added a lot to this story, I loved it from start to finish, there were many tears and lots of tissues used and so much love in this story, this is one that I highly recommend, thank you MS Rimmer and Hachette for such a fabulous and moving story.